Peace Now Head Upset over Latma Satire

Peace Now head says "right wingers" are libeling him "under the guise of a satirical skit."

Contact Editor

Gil Ronen, 30/05/12 20:14

Yariv Googleheimer

Screenshot by permission of Latma.co.il

Yariv Oppenheimer, who heads the ultra-leftist Peace Now group, is angry about a satirical imitation of him, in the form of a character named "Yariv Googleheimer" on the Latma website.

While Googleheimer is a regular on Latma's weekly Tribal Update shows, it seems a particularly strong satire in the latest Update caused Oppenheimer to lose his cool.

The skit is a version of a number from the 1960s musical Kazablan. The original version of the song – "We are All Jews" – celebrates Israelis' solidarity with each other despite the differences between the ingathered communities.

The takeoff is named "Jews united against Israel" and notes the disproportionate representation of Jews among Israel's worst rivals. It bitterly portrays George Soros, Naomi Chazan, Thomas Friedman and a list of other Jewish leftists as competing with each other over the right to castigate Israel on the international scene.

"In this way, systematically and cunningly, the right is attempting to portray whoever does not think like they do as anti-Israeli, as a traitor, as an enemy within," Oppenheimer wrote on his Facebook page. He said he was being similarly demonized by grassroots groups Im Tirtzu and Yisrael Sheli, the Yesha Council, and "Kahane's people."

Oppenheimer claimed that he never called for a boycott on Israel and noted that he serves in the IDF combat reserves and "guard[s] over the settlements."

"I find myself battling dark forces that try to put things in my mouth that I never said," he complained.

Contacted for a reaction by the Sroogim website, Latma editor-in-chief Caroline Glick said: "Oppenheimer is a hypocrite. We are a satirical program with a satirical message and he is a serious person. This is a person who calls an entire sector in Israel 'a cancer in the heart of the nation,' not in a skit, but in a serious article he published. So there is no need to get worked up over what he said."

In a 2008 article published on Maariv-NRG, Oppenheimer compared the continued Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria and the widening of Jewish communities there to "a cancer in the heart of the nation."